


The Biter Bit

by HermitLibrary_Archivist



Category: Blake's 7
Genre: Aphrodisiacs, Dubious Consent, M/M, season/series 1
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-05-26
Updated: 2008-05-26
Packaged: 2018-04-21 13:21:50
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,111
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4830608
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HermitLibrary_Archivist/pseuds/HermitLibrary_Archivist
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>By Nova</p><p>Blake hopes to exorcise his obsession with Avon by tricking him into taking an aphrodisiac.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Biter Bit

**Author's Note:**

> Note from Judith and Aralias, the archivists: This story was originally archived at [Hermit.org Blake's 7 Library](http://fanlore.org/wiki/Hermit_Library), which was closed due to maintenance costs and lack of time. To preserve the archive, we began manually importing its works to the AO3 as an Open Doors-approved project in August 2015. We posted announcements about the move and emailed authors as we imported, but may not have reached everyone. If you are (or know) this author, please contact us using the e-mail address on [Hermit.org Blake's 7 Library collection profile](http://archiveofourown.org/collections/hermitlibrary/profile). 
> 
> This work has been backdated to 26th of May 2008, which is the last date the Hermit.org archive was updated, not the date this fic was written. In some cases, fics can be dated more precisely by searching for the zine they were originally published in on [Fanlore](http://fanlore.org/wiki/Main_Page).
> 
> Note From Author: 
> 
> Previously Published in Fire and Ice #6, ed. Kathleen Resch

It's not easy, putting yourself together after a Federation mindwipe, and I'd had to do it fast. Oh, I'd spent a few years impersonating a model citizen, once the psychosurgeons had finished with me, but then a pair of rebels turned up and convinced me that I used to be one of the leaders of the Freedom Party. After that, in quick succession, I witnessed a massacre of dissidents by the Federation, went through another trial (on trumped up charges of child molestation, that being the crime most unacceptable to the general public and, incidentally, to me), found myself on a prison ship heading for one of the penal colonies, escaped, gathered a few recruits and became a freelance rebel. And, somewhere in the middle of it, I also fell for my computer expert.  
If that sounds like a throwaway line, it's an accurate impression. My attraction to Avon wasn't exactly a grand passion: closer to a bloody nuisance, actually. I was fighting an unofficial war. I didn't have any spare time to waste on getting through to the most difficult man (no, make that the most difficult human being, Supreme Commander Servalan included) that I had ever encountered. 

Kerr Avon was a complete bastard - arrogant, cynical, mercenary, detached, apolitical, insubordinate and too damned clever for my own good. Unfortunately, he also happened to have skin like cream-coloured parchment, a tightly rounded arse and a mouth that embodied everything a generation of ancient Greek sculptors had spent their lives trying to replicate, not to mention indecently long eyelashes that, every time they caressed his cheeks, seemed to be inviting you to do the same. Nonetheless, I'd managed to keep my hands off him, with difficulty but with a reasonable degree of success. It was a sensual obsession, nothing more. I let myself watch him on the flight deck every now and then and indulged in the occasional fantasy. But that's as far as it was allowed to go. 

Until Arkady, a friendly planet that was hosting a rebel conference. An exceptionally friendly planet, as a matter of fact. Not only did the Arkadians voluntarily turn their governor's residence into a conference centre: they also installed Avon and me in an upstairs suite, equipped with a water based shower. an acre-wide satin-sheeted bed and, as the governor informed me while he showed me round, 'A supply of lotos, Arkady's natural aphrodisiac, to help you and your charming friend unwind.' 

I stared back blankly, partly because the shrivelled twists of dried fruit looked distinctly anaphrodisiac but principally because I found it hard to believe that anyone could describe Avon as charming. So I missed my opportunity to correct the governor and explain that Avon and I weren't lovers, far from it - which was fortunate, as it happened, given that seconds later I realised I'd just been handed the perfect set up.

I was ushering the governor out when Avon appeared in the doorway and looked round superciliously. To anyone else's eyes, the suite would've seemed luxuriantly welcoming - woodland colours, soft lights and softer chairs, an Arkadian water sculpture rippling in a corner. But Avon could find flaws in paradise. He complained at some length about being forced to share a room and a bed, until I pointed out that both room and bed were at least five times the size of their equivalents on the Liberator. That shut him up, temporarily at least. He shrugged and subsided into the nearest chair, looking as exhausted as I felt after a day of strenuous negotiating. I poured two glasses of wine and then, as an apparent afterthought, pushed the bowl of lotos towards him. 

'What's this?' he asked, prodding the shrivelled twists with a disdainful finger. 

'Dried lotos,' I explained, offhand and casual. 'Some sort of local delicacy. I presume it tastes better than it looks.'

I selected a piece, lifted it to my mouth and palmed it, a minor conjuring trick I'd made Vila teach me, on the basis that it might come in useful some day. Then I turned away and studied the water sculpture, to ensure that I didn't appear too interested or eager. A few seconds later I was rewarded by a nasal drawl, edged with Avon's usual delight in contradicting me. 

'Wrong, Blake. This shred of mummified rubber tastes precisely as it looks.' 

I swung back just in time to see him swallow the lotos with a grimace of disgust, after which he propped his boots on the low table and started to list alternative methods of fast-tracking the next day's negotiations. Our host had informed me that the lotos would take ten minutes to act, so I lounged in my chair and talked strategy in a deliberately lulling Celtic rumble. Before the ten minutes were up, I could tell that Avon's attention, normally concentrated to an alarming degree, was beginning to wander. I raised my voice slightly and watched his eyes lift towards me, puzzled and unfocussed. He blinked twice in quick succession and asked me to repeat what I had just said.

Wonderful. He was well on the way now. 

'That's enough business for tonight,' I rumbled. 'You look tired, Avon. Why don't we talk about something more restful? For example, Vila's suggestion that we need a break - by which, of course, he means sensory ecstasy hours on a convenient pleasure planet.' 

A touch of colour stained Avon's pale skin and his breathing quickened, as if he were unwillingly forming his own pictures of sensory ecstasy. I had known I was going to enjoy this but it was a thousand times better than I'd hoped. In the ordinary run of things, Avon is exceptionally self-contained, a quality that irritates and fascinates me in equal proportions. Although I have a fairly strong will myself, it's nothing compared to his. I sprawl and gesture, scowl when I'm angry and pluck at my bottom lip when I'm puzzled or confused, whereas Avon controls every movement with impeccable rigour. So it was, frankly, quite delectable to watch him squirm in his seat, long eyelashes flickering, tongue-tip darting out to moisten lips dried by hot, swift breath. Not much of a reaction from anyone else, perhaps, but from Avon it came close to a scream for help. 

I leaned over to refill his glass, letting my shoulder graze his arm lightly. The rigorous control was still functioning: he kept his eyes firmly fixed on the rising level of the wine, though I could feel his body tilt infinitesimally towards mine. An iron filing trying to resist the magnet. I smiled and said, 'Avon' in my richest, gentlest, most charismatic voice. 'Avon, how about a toast to tomorrow's success?'

His hand reached automatically for the glass. Given his penchant for theatrical gestures, Avon ought to have long-fingered concert pianist hands but he doesn't. In fact, his fingers are square and blunt and, in consequence, absurdly endearing. I watched them hover around the glass's stem and waited for Avon to turn towards me. Once I had his eyes, I would have him: I was sure of that. 

But certainty and Avon aren't compatible concepts. While I leaned back and gloated, he balled his hand into a fist, rose abruptly and murmured, 'Excuse me, Blake.' Then he strode off to shut himself in the bathroom, clearly intending to take care of the problem on his own, which seemed a waste. I hadn't gone to all this trouble simply to give Avon the chance to masturbate more enjoyably than usual. 

I was still frowning resentfully at the closed door when the vidcom unit pinged and the governor's image formed on the screen. 'Blake, there's something I forgot to mention,' he said, looking flustered. 'Lotos works in conjunction with human pheromones. Once you've taken it, you're - ah, positively required to have sex with a partner. Otherwise the drug can linger in the bloodstream for twenty four hours, with some fairly agonising side effects.' 

I thanked him for the warning and hurried to switch off the vidcom, to make sure we weren't interrupted again. At that moment Avon returned, looking impressively controlled, if a little white around the mouth. Clearly the governor's information had been accurate, which seemed to indicate that I was now more or less obliged to seduce Avon, for therapeutic purposes. Not that I minded the responsibility, of course. Avon is beautiful enough when he's posing on the flight deck, like a statue with a transportable pedestal. But with his hair ruffled and a faint sheen of sweat across his pale skin, he looked quite impossibly lovely.

I strolled over and touched his arm, murmuring, 'Are you all right?' As my fingers tightened round his bicep, he shuddered and tried to push me away, wincing at the contact of skin on skin. 

'Blake, don't,' he said. 'I feel ... a little odd at present.' 

'Feverish, Avon?' I asked and pressed my palm to his forehead, stirring up a further reaction and enjoying my secret awareness of its cause. That famous control had finally begun to slip. Before he could stop himself, Avon was nudging against my hand like a caress-hungry cat. He glanced sideways, troubled and at a disadvantage, which improved his looks no end. 

'Oh hell,' he said suddenly, tiring of the struggle. 'Why not live dangerously?'

Then he cupped my face in his hands and kissed me. Avon's mouth is a classic of its kind, the outrageous heart-shaped curve of the upper lip balanced by a neat full arc below. A statue's mouth: I'd often wondered whether it would taste of marble or metal but the lips that parted for me were warm and wet and human, as bittersweet as the man himself. Their perfect definition melted on contact, battening and sucking hungrily and drawing my tongue into their humid depths, before he groaned and wrenched away. 

'I must be mad,' he said quietly, as though he were speaking to himself. 'Blake, stop me. Don't let me do this.' 

'Why? I don't have any particular objection,' I told him, deliberately patronising. 'After all, you're a very attractive man. There's no need to explain, Avon. I can see what the problem is. A touch of space fever, hmm? It's all right, I don't mind helping out.'

Experienced spacers take mineral supplements to control the random randiness called space fever, so it was a reasonably insulting thing to say. But, just as I'd anticipated, Avon was past caring about that. 'Ah,' he breathed, charging the single syllable with a combination of urgency and uncertainty. 'Then, if you're agreeable, we may as well proceed further.' 

When other people are uncertain, they stammer or slur or can't finish their sentences. Avon's voice was, naturally, as precise as ever, although its timbre had modulated into something remote and melancholy. The effect was disconcertingly erotic. Abandoning any pretence of altruism, I steered him across the room and shoved him down onto the bed. As I settled next to him, his fingers went sneaking inside my shirt to close over the mound of my pectoral. I gasped uncontrollably, covered his hand with mine and squeezed hard. 

At the contact, his eyes flamed and then cleared. 'Are you sure?' he asked in a temporary access of rationality. 'If you want me to stop -' 

'Could you?' I teased and watched a blush of sexual heat course through that creamy skin. 

'It would not be easy,' he admitted. 'But there is no point in continuing, unless you are willing. This is not one of our arguments on the flight deck, Blake.' I found that an interesting analogy. To me, the current situation seemed exactly like all our flight deck arguments, except that this time I could take the sexual charge behind my antagonism to its logical conclusion. I smiled down at him, releasing his hand, and stroked his cheek with assumed concern. 

'And you, Avon? Are you sure?' I asked, knowing the answer, and Avon said, fairly desperately, 'Hell, yes.'

That took care of the preliminaries rather nicely. No chance for Avon to turn this against me later, not after such unequivocal consent. I laughed and began to undress him, shunting him around to get at the somewhat overcomplicated fastenings on his garments, while his hands continued to explore any part of my body within their grasp. As I eased his pants over his hips, his cock sprang up, taut and engorged, magnificently erect. He moaned and rubbed compulsively against my thigh, then pushed me away and rasped, 'You too,' knotting his fists in the sheet to prevent himself from reaching out again. 

I stood and stripped my clothes off at a leisurely pace, enjoying the opportunity to study Avon stretched full length on moss-green satin, eyes shuttered, cock rampant, hips bearing down helplessly as a drift of breeze from the window brushed across sensitised skin. 'You need it pretty badly, don't you?' I observed, unable to suppress a grin. 

His eyes flicked open. 'Don't ask questions to which you already possess the answer,' he snarled. 'If you know what I need, then give it to me, Blake. Now, for preference.'

When I collapsed onto the bed, a sigh escaped from his lungs, rapture mingled with anguish. He writhed against me, trying for as much skin contact as possible, and I obliged by rolling on top of him and pinning him to the mattress. That seemed to calm him slightly - enough, at any rate, to let him capture my hand and wrap it round that rampant cock. Three firm strokes and he was coming for me: a rapid glide of hot slick skin, an ironhard shaft working my fist like a piston, a ragged white pennant of semen fluttering valiantly on the air. A riot of motion, battering at my chest and whimpering with relief when I held firm. As I settled my full weight onto him, trapping his pulsing cock against my thigh, he clutched me like a drowner and gasped, 'Thank you, Blake.'

That mightn't sound like much but since complete bastards never thank anyone for anything, it made quite a strong impression on me. For a moment I almost regretted what I'd done. It seemed poignantly unfair for Avon to be thanking me, when I was the one who'd put him in this position. And what a position - splayed out beneath me, his chest heaving, his cock still semi-erect . Fairness be damned. I might as well make the most of this, while I had the chance.

I levered myself up and sat back on my haunches, planning my next move. As I ran a leisurely hand across the dark-furred torso wedged between my thighs, Avon struggled onto one elbow and angled his head towards my groin. Considerably more reciprocal than I'd expected. For an electrifying half-second, I wanted nothing more than to ram my cock past those perfect lips and thrust till I came. But, unlike Avon, I couldn't count on the lotos to keep me going for the rest of the night, so I locked my hands round the back of his skull, tilting his face towards me, and said, 'Not yet. Let me fuck you again.'

Another sudden sexual blush, followed by a barely audible 'yes'. I smiled at the conflict between lust and reluctance and went on tracking the patterns of fine black hair down Avon's chest, my eyes fixed on his, so that I could gauge his reaction as my fingertips skimmed closer to his nipples. When I brushed lightly across rosebrown nubs, he froze and tried to twist away. I clamped my knees against his ribs to remind him who was master here and tweaked harder, murmuring, 'Like that, do you?'

'Isn't it obvious?' Avon snapped, hoisting his shoulder higher in an attempt to shield his face. He didn't stand a chance, of course. I rolled his nipples meditatively between thumb and forefinger until he bucked and flung his head back, then repeated, level and inexorable, 'Do you like that, Avon?'

'Yes!' he hissed resentfully, although when I leaned forward to let my mouth take over from my hands, he arched towards me, sighing, 'Ah, yes, Blake.' I sucked greedily, swirling a tight bud around my tongue, shifted across to give the other nipple its fair share of attention and lifted my head to ask, rather breathlessly, 'What else do you like?' A risky question, considering the recipient, but I was in a risk-taking mood. I gazed at the shadowed planes of that perversely beautiful face, waiting for some esoteric instruction, then tensed in surprise as Avon whispered, 'Kiss me.' 

The pad of flesh inside his lower lip was sleek and sweet, even more delicate than the skin that lines the wrist or caps a cock. I bit it gently and probed deeper, venturing past neat sharp teeth to graze the rough velvet of Avon's tongue, exploring the slippery ridges of the palate, frolicking through a haven of warm wetness. Kissing changes your perspective: it's difficult to feel like a detached observer with your tongue in another man's mouth. I was cradling Avon in my arms by now, nibbling on his lips while he moaned and heaved in long slow spasms that rubbed his cock down my belly. With the feel of him against my skin and the sound of him in my ears, it was even harder to hold back from orgasm: but I managed it. For a moment there, I almost wished I'd sampled the lotos myself, to prolong my endurance, but my mind's been messed with so often that I'm wary about that sort of thing. 

Still, my struggle for discipline had much the same effect. After the initial effort, I reached a plateau of sustained arousal that enabled me to indulge all my flight deck fantasies, without any fear of losing control. I kissed Avon's mouth one last time and swerved round to kneel over his cock, cossetting and handling the glossy shaft with an obsessive concentration that came close to nostalgia - if it's possible to feel nostalgic about something that's still happening. Never again, my mind whispered regretfully, as I weighed the suede sac of his balls in my hand. Never again, as I licked my way up a tightly corded vein. Never again, as I fitted the cockhead into my mouth. 

Never again. Never again. Never again. 

Regret must be contagious. At any rate, Avon seemed to be as eager as I was, judging by the tremors that racked his body and the frantic hands burrowing through my curls. I teased him for a little longer, then relented and gulped his cock into the back of my throat, relaxing the muscles and working them rhythmically round the shaft. He sobbed once and came, murmuring, 'Blake ... Blake... Blake ..' at the intervals of a slow heartbeat, culminating in a heartstopping cry of either pleasure or pain: by that point, it was hard to differentiate. A gush of heat across my palate and the pungent aftertaste of wormwood scalding my tongue. I swallowed the bitter cream with a final pang of nostalgia and fell back onto the pillows, slipping an arm under Avon's shoulders.

That's the one of the parts I like best, although I hadn't expected to enjoy it with Avon. Despite our temporary truce, I was sure the war would be on again once words returned. But in fact the aftermath was unpredictably peaceful. I lay there, smoothing dishevelled brownsilk hair and telling Avon how lovely he was, while he concentrated on dragging a series of harsh uneven breaths into his lungs. For once, that restless mind was almost completely freed from thought. Even when Avon had finally got his breathing under control, he stayed where he was, snuggled into my side with one leg slung over my thigh. Encouraged by this sign of relative trust, I hitched him closer and sent my hand skidding down his spine, to close round the peach-shaped buttocks that I used to watch from the far side of the flight deck. 

That prompted the reaction I'd been anticipating all along: Avon jerking away as though my hand were a branding iron, marked Property of Roj Blake. Under normal circumstances, I would have responded with some sort of cutting comment but, lulled by the rest, I decided to investigate further. When I leaned sideways, running a cautious scan down Avon's body, I could see his cock already beginning to stir and stiffen. So that was what he'd been trying to hide. Apparently, the lotos hadn't finished with him yet.

Good. Neither had I.

Surprise is the essence of attack. I sank my teeth into the solid bar of muscle that held Avon's shoulders tense, causing him to gasp and swivel towards me, which, of course, made his erection blatantly obvious. He stared back defiantly for half a second, then sighed soundlessly and flung his arms up in a gesture of surrender, abandoning any attempt to conceal the intensity of his response. I laughed and hooked his legs onto my shoulders, reached for the array of jars on the bedside table and pressed a cream-slick hand against the elastic pucker of his arse. It expanded instantly, engulfing two fingers and then three, sucking and gripping till they were buried knuckle-deep. 

'Now,' Avon said imperiously, so I took him at his word, withdrawing my hand and driving my cock straight in. He clenched around me, a succession of violent contractions that jacked his pelvis higher and hurled him hard against me, hands ripping at the pillows, heels drumming on my back. Up until that moment, there had still been a residual element of Avon on display, striking poses to compel my admiration. That was all gone now. He was fighting tooth and nail to give me everything he'd got. Desperate. Driven. Utterly defenceless. Wide open - and I mean that both metaphorically and literally. 

For a mindless interval I pitched and lunged, absorbed in the delicious friction. Then, as Avon's struggles became more frantic, I lifted my head to take a mental snapshot: something that I could hold onto, after this was over. Avon was strung tight as a longbow, eyes darkly empty, hair plastered across his forehead in sweaty streaks. Not a remnant of control left to him. He kept crying out continuously, modulating up and down a scale of drug-induced ecstasy, so lost and delirious that I wasn't even sure whether he recognised me any more. In fact, I was beginning to feel almost jealous of the intensity when at the last minute he looked up and said, 'Roj,' holding my gaze tenaciously while he tossed and thrashed and came. 

One word: but it was enough to trigger my own orgasm. An unstoppable suction retracting my balls, white noise hissing through my skull and a blaze of white light behind my eyes. I slammed into Avon until I'd emptied out every last vestige of thought and sensation, then dropped straight into an achingly peaceful trance, as tranquil and absolute as falling asleep in a snowstorm. My usual dreams and nightmares came to meet me but I sidestepped and floated on through an eternity of snug contentment, enfolding me and cradling me right up to the point where I woke with a sudden jolt.

Memory returned, a process so abrupt and complete that it was physically painful. I groaned softly, regretting my tendency to act on impulse. No question about it, Avon was going to be furious. I'd intended to work out some sort of strategy to protect my back but it was too late for that now. I was stranded in an oversized bed, arms clasped round a man who would at best freeze my balls at first glance or at worst attempt to kill me on waking: a thought unnerving enough to make me twitch and jerk Avon off my shoulder. 

His eyes opened, focussing on me with the tenacious stare that I remembered from the night before. 'Strange,' he remarked. 'I have never ...': failing to complete the sentence, just like a normal human being. 

That look nearly undid me. For a second I caught a glimpse of an alternate universe where we could start all over again, not impelled by the drug this time but by our own choice. Words formed in my mind. It's all right, Kerr. You're still safe. I've got it just as bad. As a matter of fact, I could even love you, if - 

But you'd have to be suicidal to say something like that to a complete bastard and, while I could hardly be described as a perfect example of mental health, I'm not entirely self-destructive. Hastily reneging on the temptation to honesty, I sat up, yawned elaborately and said, 'Feeling better this morning, Avon?' His stare splintered and fell. 'Yes,' he said, economical as always, adding with some difficulty, 'I am obliged to you, Blake.' 

'Think nothing of it,' I said heartily. 'A dose of space fever, that's all. Could happen to anyone. I promise I won't take advantage of this,' offering him the pretence that nothing significant had occurred. 

Avon clasped his hands round his knees and frowned at the turmoil of seagreen sheets. Then he assumed one of his more inscrutable expressions and nodded fractionally, accepting the bargain. I swung myself off the bed and strode into the shower room, whistling while I went. As jets of clear Arkadian water pummelled my muscles, I lolled against the emerald tiling, giddy with triumph. I'd had a satisfactory bout of sex, broken my obsession with Avon and put the bastard in his place, for a change. What's more, it even seemed as though I was going to get away with it. 

There was one awkward moment later on, when I ran downstairs into the foyer of the residence and our host came bustling over to ask how we'd enjoyed the evening. A friendly enquiry but more than a little dangerous. I glanced round quickly, to make sure Avon hadn't overheard. But apparently my luck was still holding, because he was over in the opposite corner with the governor's partner, presumably arranging some aspect of the day's negotiations. 

So that was all right.

 

2.

 

Mediating between half a dozen disparate groups of rebels kept me busy for the rest of the day and we returned to the Liberator with a long list of assignments. Nothing particularly important - just ferrying a cargo of weaponry from Arkady to Kinessos, rescuing a renegade psychostrategist from Space City and some undercover work on Gallica, to test the rumours about an emerging rebel movement there - but it all took time. I barely spoke to Avon for the best part of two standard weeks and when the Liberator's crew finally managed to sit down for a meal together, he seemed as composed as ever, lounging back while the rest of us chatted about the fortnight's work and interposing the occasional scathing comment. No lingering smiles, erotic innuendo or embarrassed glances in my direction. In fact, there wasn't the faintest hint of an acknowledgment that we'd spent several hours screwing each other senseless. 

That suited me perfectly, although at the same time I have to confess I was mildly piqued. After all, Avon didn't know he'd fucked me under the influence of lotos. In his place, I would've at least considered the possibility of repeating the experience but - oh well, Avon was probably contrary enough to reject pleasure on principle. At any rate, when he challenged me to a game of chess the following night, I decided that I might as well accept. Logic told me I would be safe with Avon. He obviously wasn't planning to make a pass at me, even if I'd wanted it: which, of course, I didn't. 

It was the first time I'd been alone with him since Arkady and, come to think of it, one of the few times I'd ever been allowed into his cabin. To my surprise, I felt slightly edgy. While Avon set out the chess pieces, I veered off to roam around the room, taking an inventory of his belongings. Everything was thoroughly ordered and symmetrical, exactly what I would have expected from Avon but it irritated me, all the same. I picked up the lone ornament on his desk - an abstract sculpture in polished obsidian, no higher than my hand but intriguingly complex - and set it down a few centimetres out of line, then drifted on to examine the holo of a print by Rice, positioned above Avon's bed.

Thirty seconds later I realised I was studying the bed more intently than the holo. I blushed, backed away and helped myself to a handful of black-flecked wafers from a bowl by the chess board, to cover my confusion. Some regional speciality from Kinessos or Gallica, presumably. Avon tends to collect that sort of thing, in a spirit of scientific experiment, but the wafers weren't one of his better discoveries. I averted my head and sucked rubbery fragments with a fruity undertaste from between my teeth. Noticed that the obsidian sculpture had been moved back into place and scowled at it morosely. Paced round the cabin one more time, dropped into a chair opposite Avon and admitted that I'd spent the last few minutes inventing excuses to avoid facing him. 

As it happened, he was looking particularly splendid just then, in a high-collared black brocade dressing gown that swathed him from neck to ankle, although, uncharacteristically, his feet were bare. One of the few parts of Avon's body that I hadn't inspected thoroughly on Arkady. Pale and narrow, with a tender hollow below the ankle that snagged my gaze until I managed to shift my eyes to the safer territory of his hands, which were toying restlessly with some invisible object. That was unusual. Avon has a weakness for theatrical gestures but otherwise his movements are strictly functional. He's not given to fidgeting or fiddling. It made me curious.

I leaned forward and tried to get a closer look at the object he was juggling. That prompted a theatrical gesture: Avon's hand shooting towards me, palm open, the object on display. Something small and shrivelled and unaccountably familiar. Like ... like a piece of mummified rubber or a twist of dried fruit.

My heart clenched and blood sang in my ears. 'So you know?' I said hoarsely and Avon nodded. 

'My basic mindset verges on the paranoid,' he told me. 'Did you really think I wouldn't notice such a marked difference in my sexual response? Three times in one night? Not since I was eighteen years old, Blake.'

For a fraction of a second I was possessed by a fantastic jealousy of the man or woman who had bedded an eighteen year old Avon. Then I thrust that highly inappropriate reaction aside and returned to the attack. 'How could you?' I snarled and Avon arched his eyebrows at me. 

'Oh, I think you know the answer. Tell me how you justified your use of lotos on Arkady and I shall justify myself in the same way.' 

That effectively shortcircuited any further protests I might've tried to make - and besides, protest would have been futile by then. My pulse was racing and the swell of a burgeoning erection strained the seam of my pants, indicating that the lotos in Avon's black-flecked wafers had already started to take effect. There really wasn't much point in procrastinating. I ripped my shirt open, marched across the cabin, kicked off my boots and flung myself, somewhat melodramatically, onto the bed.

'Well, this is poetic justice, I suppose,' I told him. 'You'll have your revenge - after all, I can't stop you. Just get it over with as quickly as possible.'

Avon rose, a swift stylised movement that sent black brocade rippling across bare white feet. 'No, thank you, Blake,' he purred. 'As a matter of fact, I think I would prefer to take it slowly.'

He snapped his fingers at the light monitor and lifted a hand to his throat, unfastening the high collar. As the brocade peeled back, I realised that he was naked under the gown. The lights had been lowered to a level that displayed the contrast between dark cloth and pale skin to maximum advantage but then, Avon had probably taken location holos in advance. This whole situation had clearly been set up with a degree of attention to detail that made my impromptu seduction look amateurish.

Avon poised by the chess board, studying me with the impersonal enthusiasm of a connoisseur, then inclined his head to direct a disapproving stare at my groin. Impossible to pretend I didn't understand. I fumbled with the buckle of my belt and tugged off my trousers, half proud and half shamed at the sight of my cock blindly butting the air, bloodred and distended. When I looked up, Avon was prowling towards me, the dressing gown slipping from his shoulders. I noticed to my chagrin that he was completely unaroused - although, of course, that was undoubtedly the aim of the exercise. I'd had my chance to watch him lose control on Arkady.

It was his turn now. 

I settled back on the bed and waited, tensely passive, every nerve in my body vibrating with agonised anticipation. As Avon smiled and touched a hand to my cheek, I shivered uncontrollably and leaned into the caress. Another of those summer-lightning smiles and another swift stylised movement: Avon swooping down abruptly, the full length of his body instantly imprinted on mine. It was like a dive into deep water, changing the entire texture of the world. I gasped and felt my muscles relax, instinctively adapting to the contours of his chest and pelvis, moulding and yielding until we were fitted together so closely that for an hallucinatory second I was convinced I could feel Avon in my bones.

One last futile attempt to restrain myself and then I began to move against him, tiny shifts of position that were scarcely perceptible and yet, at the same time, almost more than I could bear. If this was how the lotos worked, it was no wonder that even my self-contained computer expert had been unable to resist its effects. I certainly didn't have any hope of resisting. As Avon licked at an earlobe and dipped his tongue into the hollow of my throat, the ache in my balls increased with each successive touch. Avon was only playing with me so far but it was terrifyingly effective. By the time he took hold of my cock, my response was so outrageously excessive that I found myself whimpering like a frightened child. He pulled back instantly and frowned down at me. 

'Am I hurting you?' he asked, sounding slightly disconcerted. 

'No,' I groaned. 'I love it. I love you.' After that there was a brief interval during which I bucked and yelled and jetted sperm across Avon's thigh and - yes, all right - wept against his shoulder. Then I looked up and added dryly, 'Just don't expect me to admit it after the drug wears off.' 

Avon gave me a charming smile, his usual two seconds' warning to brace yourself for something really cutting. 'But, Blake,' he murmured, trailing a fingertip down the line of hair from my navel to my groin, 'there is no drug.' 

It took me half a minute to assimilate the words and even then I couldn't believe them. I swallowed hard and stammered, 'What do you mean?' 

'Precisely what I said,' he replied urbanely. 'Unlike you, I am not prepared to test unknown substances on my colleagues. I merely served you some Gallican fruit wafers and showed you the lotos, Blake. Your own guilt did the rest.'

I still didn't want to believe him but I knew it had to be true. Avon is incapable of lying, either the residue of his Alpha training or some obscure private code of his own. I'm not romanticising here: if he could lie, he undoubtedly would. 

'Bastard,' I spat at him and then changed my mind. After all, to call Avon a bastard was, at that precise moment, an understatement. I tried 'sadist' and 'puppeteer' and a few other terms that I've forgotten but he remained unmoved. 

'If that is true of me, Blake, it is equally true of you,' he pointed out. 'More importantly, you appeared to be enjoying yourself - although we can call it a touch of space fever, I suppose.' 

I winced, remembering how I had patronised him on Arkady. 'No, it was more than that,' I admitted. 'You've always wanted to find my weak point, haven't you? Well, you've finally done it. You can break me now, Avon, or you can be generous and let me go.'

Avon sat up and reached for the dressing gown, quenching his nakedness in its heavy folds. 'I'm afraid I have never been tempted by false binaries,' he informed me. 'Besides, it seems a pity for you to leave without learning anything.'

Now that Avon had covered himself, I was damned if I was going to lie there on show. I hauled savagely at the bedclothes, snarling, 'Oh, yes? What could I possibly learn from this situation?'

'To trust me a little more, perhaps,' he suggested, a proposition so patently ridiculous that it made me laugh out loud.

'Trust you?' I repeated. 'The man who spends half his time plotting to take the Liberator from me?'

Those long eyelashes flickered, casting a tracery of fine shadow across parchment cheeks. 'Careful, Blake,' Avon warned. 'You are not endearing yourself to me. Has it never occurred to you that if I genuinely wanted the Liberator, I would have it by now?'

'Then why all the hints and threats?' I asked, honestly puzzled.

'Standard bargaining strategy,' he explained. 'If you double your starting price, you may, in the end, get exactly what you want.'

'And half of the Liberator is ... joint command? You're joking, of course. There can only be one leader.'

Avon frowned at his manicured nails, inspecting them for flaws. 'Oh, I'm not interested in speechmaking and issuing orders and the other paraphernalia of leadership,' he said lightly. 'I would leave that side of things to you. I simply want an equal share in planning - call it your adviser or second-in-command, if you prefer. I have tried your version of democracy but since we never actually discuss any of the decisions you make on our behalf, we might as well settle for a sensible hierarchy. It could hardly be less effective than uniting the worst elements of anarchy and tyranny.'

Apparently, Avon wasn't quite as apolitical as I had assumed. Once I'd disentangled his analysis of the situation, I scowled and said, 'You're not joking, are you? You're quite serious.'

Agate eyes lifted and locked onto mine. 'Oh yes, Blake,' he said. 'Deadly serious. Either you agree to this or I leave.'

'Blackmail,' I noted and Avon shrugged.

'Yes, I suppose it is,' he agreed without much interest, adding as an afterthought, 'On the other hand, it could have been a gift. You only had to ask me to share my expertise, Blake - but then, you never did.'

He had a point there. I knew the rest of my crew's skills and capacities back to front - how far Cally's telepathy extended or when Vila's pride in his lockpicking talents would outweigh his cowardice - but even after a year of working together, Avon still kept surprising me. Although I relied on him more than all the others combined, I had to confess I knew as little about him as ... well, as I knew about myself. 

For some reason, that unremarkable insight seemed to cancel everything else I'd been thinking and feeling. 'All right,' I said, suddenly fey. 'Fuck me again and the Liberator's yours.' 

'Don't be absurd,' he said crisply. 'You are acting on impulse, as usual. This issue can't be resolved so easily, Blake.' 

'Maybe not,' I agreed. 'But fuck me, anyway.'

Avon's mouth tightened briefly and then curved into one of his rare unaffected smiles, as though he were equally pleased to postpone any final decision. He whisked the sheet back and began to examine me with the abstract consideration he would have given a new data crystal retrieved from Zen's innards. I wriggled uncomfortably under this scientific scrutiny but couldn't shake his gaze. Then, just as I was about to reach for his shoulders and pull him down, there was a flash of black, followed by a flash of white: the brocade dressing gown eddying in slow pleats to the floor and Avon pouncing. 

Instantly my cock seemed to double in size - not technically true, of course, just the enhanced sensations produced by Avon's mouth closing over it. When I moaned and thrust, he latched a hand round the base, just above my balls, to hold me steady. His head rose and fell in an even rhythm that pumped his mouth up and down the shaft, lips parting every now and then to send a seductive swirl of breath round the swollen hood, while his tongue-tip flicked, swift and voracious, across its seeping slit. And at the precise second when I started to get used to that, he added an extra refinement, turning his head from side to side with a deft rotation that propelled his lips in a corkscrew twist around my cock. 

It was wonderful: but it wasn't enough. I sighed apologetically, slotted my thumbs into Avon's temples and lifted his head. A mute gesture towards the tube of gel by the bedside and then I was rolling onto my stomach and presenting my arse in an unmistakable invitation. Symbolic, I suppose, although I couldn't have explained what it symbolised: not the standard connotations of dominance and submission, at any rate, something much more complex and chaotic than that. I didn't really understand it myself. I only knew that I wanted it.

Wanted Avon inside me.

Wanted him desperately.

However, it's possible to want something without being prepared for the consequences. Thanks to the Federation's tinkering, I have no accurate memories of any previous sexual relationships. Naturally, I'd tried a couple of experiments on the two pleasure planets we'd visited but I certainly hadn't trusted my partners enough to let them fuck me. So, when an inquisitive finger nudged into my anus, my muscles automatically clenched and tried to force it out. 

I grunted indignantly, annoyed by my own resistance, and ordered myself to relax, which inevitably made me even more tense. Avon wouldn't think twice before lacerating someone's psyche but he can be quite solicitous about other people's bodies. He eased his finger back and asked, 'Have you done this recently, Blake?'

'How the hell would I know?' I growled. 'The Federation took care of that.' 

Anyone else would have been concerned or at least mildly apologetic. Avon, who always knows how a complete bastard would behave in any given situation, just said, 'Of course, the mindwipe' and added with unconcealed amusement, 'Have you done this at all?' 

'Yes!' I yelled in an agony of frustration. 'I may not remember much about my past but I could hardly help noticing that I'm monosexual.' 

'A rebel in everything,' Avon said, sounding almost approving. 'Perhaps you should try contemplating the revolution for the next few minutes, Blake. It might help to distract your attention.' 

I was still laughing when his finger materialised inside my rectum. Before I could react, either negatively or positively, Avon began to stroke the elastic walls, back and forth and then a subtle twist of the knuckles that massaged the sphincter muscles and allowed him to slip another finger in. He probed deeper, spreading his hand to establish the dimensions, which made me laugh again: trust a technician to measure the area first. Avon nipped the back of my neck by way of rebuke, then angled sideways to find the crest of my prostate and coat it with delicate fingertip touches. After half a minute of this I was mangling my forearm, teeth buried in folds of flesh to stop myself shouting out loud, so far gone that I didn't even notice the moment when Avon's fingers were replaced by Avon's cock - although, of course, once I'd noticed it, I couldn't think of anything else.

He proceeded to fuck me like a master, now fast, now slow, firm where I needed firmness, gentle when gentleness was required. The slippery cylinder of his cock filling a void inside me, using me and stretching me and eliciting a torrent of sensations that released twelve months' accumulated emotion in as many minutes. Joy. Panic. Hope. Terror. Yearning. I felt all of that and more. I came at some point, spurting into the tumbled sheets, but I barely noticed that either. It wasn't important, nowhere near as important as the point when Avon gasped and went still and then surged against me, murmuring, 'Blake ... Blake ... Blake' at the intervals of a slow heartbeat. 

He pitched forward, suddenly limp and heavy. I huddled under the welcome weight, while the muscles of my arse continued to convulse around a cock that was no longer there. My eyes were wet and my mind raced in frantic circles, trying to establish whether the arm slung over my shoulders was a sign of affection or merely exhaustion. Stupid of me, really. I should've noticed long ago that I loved him. If I had, I might've been better equipped to interpret the present situation. 

I might've been able to work out how the bastard felt about me. 

After a while Avon shifted sideways and hoisted me onto his shoulder. I ducked my head, instinctively hiding my face. Tears leaked from my eyes, puddled in the sockets and - damn, oh damn - dripped onto Avon's chest. I blinked rapidly but there didn't seem to be any way to stop the flow, so I lay there, mesmerised by the crystal drops gathering on springy dark hair, and waited to see what would happen next. 

Eventually a dry voice said, rather testily, 'Well, Blake? Do you intend to tell me what's going on?'

It was exactly what I needed. A fraction more concern in that voice and I would've been done for but Avon's innate detachment enabled me to sit up and try to explain. 'They murdered my past,' I said, forcing the words through a throat choked with self-disgust. 'There was something called Roj Blake, once upon a time, but the Federation gutted it, sewed it back together and sent it off to pose as a model citizen. Then someone told me who I'd been and I've been trying to live that man's life ever since - but unfortunately, I don't remember much about it, so I have to make it up as I go along. I'm only a rough approximation of a human being and it shows, more clearly at some times than others.' 

'In what way?' Avon asked, genuinely curious. 'You seem perfectly human to me.' 

I smiled grimly. 'Do I? In general I feel more like an automaton, going through the motions.' 

Avon thought about that for a moment, processing the information with his customary efficiency. Then he nodded and said, 'Ah, I see. You mean you are the sort of person others might describe as a machine.' 

Vila, of course, is always comparing Avon to a machine, so that made me laugh against my will. As the laughter cut through my self-disgust, I realised that Avon had deliberately chosen to align the two of us. It was unexpected: and unexpectedly touching. Apparently, despite all my efforts to protect myself, I had inadvertently dropped my guard and admitted the possibility of forming new attachments. Right then, I felt appallingly fond of Avon. I even felt fond of Vila. Oh hell, I felt fond of the whole damned crew. 

That discovery triggered another burst of tears, where images of my Liberator companions began to merge with the few remaining memories of my murdered friends and family, alternating at random intervals until I had somehow wept them into order. When I knuckled my eyes dry, I found myself sprawled across the bed, head pillowed on Avon's thigh. He touched my shoulder lightly, looking down at me with an expression that I would have described as solicitous, if it hadn't been superimposed on Avon's face. 

'Better?' he inquired in his most affectless voice. 

I nodded, surprised, as always, by my own resilience. 'As a matter of fact, I do feel better,' I told him and then added without missing a beat, 'Why, Avon?'

'Too vague,' he said promptly. 'You will need to be more specific, Blake.' 

I propped myself on one elbow, so that I could watch him while I replied. 'Why subject yourself to this? You're normally more fastidious. I've seen you virtually destroy a circuit board, in order to escape when Vila looked like confiding in you. But you deliberately provoked this situation, even though you must've guessed it would result in some sort of emotional thunderstorm. Why?' 

Avon's defence systems slammed back into place, faster than a force wall. 'For revenge, of course,' he said. 'I wanted to make you expose yourself, as you did me.' When I blinked at him, startled, he added with sudden vehemence, 'Did you think the lotos alone could have wrung that performance from me? I assure you, my self-control is greater than that.'

'Your self-control is absolute,' I said bleakly and Avon laughed. 

'Hardly. You haven't had time to reassess the incident on Arkady in the light of the information I have just given you. When you do, remember that I have seen you as vulnerable as you have seen me.'

Avon, vulnerable? Well, yes, come to think of it, I had slipped him the lotos with the express purpose of stripping away his defences. When I looked back at the way I'd behaved on Arkady, I was horrified and that's putting it mildly. For some reason, it had never occurred to me that Avon might have his own areas of vulnerability. I'd always seen him as the opposition, the one I had to get past in order to score. That's a metaphor from the team sports I used to play at university but I would have bet the Liberator that Avon had never joined a team. He's a chess player - and to follow that metaphor through, on Arkady I'd played the opening move and then tipped the board over. 

'So that's your revenge?' I said. 'Not the sex itself but forcing me to admit I wanted it?' 

'Yes,' Avon said flatly. 'I achieved precisely what I intended and I feel no better than before.'

The echo of his voice bounced off the walls and ricocheted away. We leaned back and listened to the silence, Avon propped against the pillows, me lolling across the bed. An outsider observer might have thought we were both fairly relaxed but actually we could have served as a working model of two men close to the end of their tether.

'Revenge tends to have that effect,' I said finally. 'The idea's always more satisfying than the reality.' 

'Ah, so you're planning to abandon your vendetta against the Federation?' Avon asked, snide and caustic. 

'Not yet,' I admitted. 'Still, I assume I'll have to modify my plans, once you're joint leader. I imagine you're less interested in revenge than effectiveness.'

For once in my life, I seemed to have rendered Avon speechless. As he stared at me, eyes blank with surprise, I reached across the gap between us and took hold of his hand. Blunt fingers closed round mine and gripped punishingly tight. I considered saying, 'So you reacted so strongly on Arkady because you wanted me?' or 'You know I made such a fool of myself because I'm in love with you?': but that wasn't really our style, so I just yanked hard on his wrist. Avon, who has no sense of balance, collapsed against my shoulder and we held each other in silence for a while. 

'What next?' I asked eventually. 'We've said too much now. We can only go forward or back from here.'

That's Avon's kind of question. He proceeded to analyse our situation in rapid-fire detail. 'In order to erase the past two weeks, one or other of us would have to leave,' he told me. 'If you leave, you will make a poor sort of rebel without the Liberator's resources. If I leave, I miss the chance to complete my investigation into an advanced alien technology. Therefore, it would be more rational to consider continuing this liaison.'

I realised I'd been holding my breath for the last two minutes and let it out in a sigh. 'Well, if it's the rational thing to do, we'd better do it,' I agreed.

Avon stretched and yawned, an elaborately feline performance. 'Good,' he said. 'That's settled. Now perhaps we can get some sleep.'

He clapped his hands twice and the lights dimmed. As he turned his back on me, hitching the bed clothes over his shoulder, I realised I needed to make some definitive statement about this new development, after all. I tossed and fidgeted, gathered my courage together and whispered, 'Avon?'

'Yes?' said a remote voice from the darkness. 

'Avon, you do realise I meant it when I said I love you?'

An intimidating pause - intentionally so, I assume - and then the darkness replied, 'Yes, I know. That is precisely what made your behaviour on Arkady so annoying.'

It wasn't particularly helpful but then, I shouldn't have been expecting assistance from Avon. I scraped up the remaining fragments of my courage and tried again, saying, 'And how do you feel about me?'

'I have told you already,' he observed. 'Under other circumstances, I might not have been able to resist fucking when primed with lotos but I would not have done so as ... whole-heartedly.'

'Then you do care about me,' I decided. 'But how much?' 

Avon sighed irritably and the mattress jolted as he flounced into a more comfortable position. 'Work it out for yourself, Blake,' he snapped. 'They say that's the most effective method of learning.' 

It was exactly the sort of answer that you'd expect from a complete bastard. I found it oddly consoling, probably because, in my own way, I'm a complete bastard too. I slid my arm cautiously around him and had barely finished counting to ten before I felt his hand fold over mine, confirming what I had worked out for myself. 

I fell asleep within seconds and for the first time since the mindwipe I dreamed, not of death and destruction, but of Avon.


End file.
